Settled in 1624 by my peeps the Dutch, New York City and its five
boroughs are home to more than 8 million people, making it the largest city in
the United States. New York City seems to have at least two of everything,
including two basketball, two hockey, two baseball, and two football teams, one
of which, the Jets, is this week's Saints' opponent.

The team began play in 1960 as the
Titans of New York in the AFL. In 1963, under new ownership, the team changed
its name to the Jets. Like the Saints, the Jets have one Super Bowl
appearance, against the Colts. Joe Namath led them to victory in Super
Bowl III.

In 2010, the Jets moved into the
newly built MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J, a facility they
share equally with the New York Giants. Hopefully for Saints fans, this trip
will serve as a preview visit for this year's Super Bowl, which will be held at
MetLife Stadium on Feb. 2, 2014.

The Saints' last regular-season visit to the
Jets was a 27-19 win on Sunday, Nov. 27, 2005.

Taxis: JFK to
Manhattan are a flat rate of $52.00 plus tolls with an additional New York
State surcharge of $.50. Taxis from LaGuardia, which is closer to Manhattan,
run around $35-$45. Estimates from Newark run $55-$75.

From Newark, it is cheaper and often faster to take the AirTrain,
which connects you to the NJ Transit and Amtrak systems. You can then ride
those to Penn Station, all for about $12.

The NYC Airporter shuttle bus runs every 20-30 minutes and
will take you round-trip from LaGuardia ($23) or Kennedy ($29) to Grand Central
Station, Penn Station, or the Port Authority Bus Terminal, with a free shuttle
to midtown hotels and Times Square.

Statue of Liberty - The
151-foot statue of Libertas, the Roman goddess of freedom, by Frederic-Auguste
Bartholdi was a 100th birthday present to America from the French
and dominates Liberty Island in New York Harbor. Take the subway to Castle
Clinton in Battery Park and catch a ferry that runs every 20-30 minutes (8:30
a.m. until 4:30 p.m.)

Empire State Building
(350 5th Avenue) - King Kong climbed it (twice), Cary Grant had
an affair to remember here, and according to Percy Jackson, it is the home of
Mount Olympus. The tallest building in
the world when it opened in 1931, the 102-story art deco icon of the Manhattan
skyline hosts 120 million visitors a year and is open from 8 a.m. until 2 a.m.
(last ticket at 1:15 a.m.)

Times Square
(Broadway & Seventh @ 42nd Street) - Once a seedy
crossroads, Times Square is now the neon heart of New York City, with 44
Broadway theaters, world class shopping (and people watching), and the famed
New York Times news ticker that has been a feature since 1928.

Pay your respects at
Ground Zero - The National September 11 Memorial & Museum was dedicated
on the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks that killed nearly
3,000 people. It is scheduled to be completed in 2014, but visitors can still
pay their respects by getting a visitor's pass ahead of time online, or by going
to the 9/11 Memorial Preview Site at 20 Vesey St. (10 a.m. to 6
p.m., last entry at 5).

FAO Schwarz(5th
Avenue & 58th Street) - You may help with homework, show up at
all their soccer games, and leave thoughtful notes in their lunch boxes, but if
you don't get off the plane and take your kids straight to this massive Midtown
toy store, you are the worst parent ever. (The previous statement was written
with the assistance of my son.)

Central Park - Seeing
as you will have no more money after FAO Schwarz, head across the street to
Central Park for an inexpensive afternoon of carousels, boating, hiking and
picnicking. Also, the Central Park Zoo, where those "Madagascar" penguins ostensibly
live, can be found here.

The Big Apple Circus
(Damrosch Park at Lincoln Center) - This classic, non-profit one-ring show just
opened for the season and offers up-close performances by trapeze artists,
acrobats, animals, and clowns.

American Museum of
Natural History(Central Park West between 77th & 81st) - Founded
in 1869 and host to 5 million visitors annually, this legendary museum boasts 46
exhibit halls that cover four city blocks and contains the world's largest
collection of dinosaur fossils. I'm sure they have other stuff, too, but my son
never lets us get out of the dinosaur area.

5. Where to eat /
drink:

If you ate at a
different New York restaurant every night, including Christmas and Mardi Gras,
you would not be done until sometime in 2025. So, really, I'm in over my head.
These are the spots I'm thinking of going. Don't follow me.

The
Meatball Shop(Five locations) - At
this New York original (motto: "We Make Balls"), you pick your meatball (spicy pork,
classic beef, etc), pick a sauce (i.e. pesto, mushroom gravy, parm cream) and get
'em on a hero, smashed into a bun, or as sliders.

New
York pizza (everywhere, always) -
I've lived in both New York City and Italy. New York has the best pizza. The
crispy, wide, thin slices you can get in New York (even in the middle of the
night) are meant to be folded when eaten lest you be ridiculed by the natives
of Gotham.

The
Original Soup Man
(259-A West 55th Street & elsewhere) - "NO SOUP FOR YOU!" Yeah, that "Seinfeld"
episode was based on owner Ali
"Al" Yeganeh and his soup shop, where he offers a wonderful variety
of small batch bisques, gumbos, chowders and more.

6.
Game Day

In
2010, the New Meadowlands Stadium opened as the equal home of the Jets and the
Giants. In 2011, insurance company MetLife acquired the naming rights. With 82,566 total seats, it has the
highest capacity in the NFL.

The stadium offers
about 22,500 parking spaces in 14 lots, plus 5,000 more spots adjacent to the
east side of the stadium. The parking lots open five hours before the game (8
a.m. for the Saints game).

All vehicles parking at the stadium
complex must have a pre-paid parking
permit from Ticketmaster or NFL Ticket Exchange. If you don't have a
prepaid permit, you can pay $35 to park at the off-site lot located at 20 Murray
Hill Pkwy. and take the shuttle to MetLife Stadium.

To get to the stadium by public transportation from New York City: Take
the NRQ or DF subway lines to 34 St.-Herald Square Station, then transfer to a Hoboken-bound PATH train on the
mezzanine level. Get off at the Hoboken PATH Station and walk upstairs to the
NJ Transit Rail Station and get the train to MetLife Sports Complex. Another
option: Take ACE or 123 subway lines to
34 St.-Penn Station and buy a round-trip ticket to MetLife Station from
a NJ Transit clerk or vending machine. Take the next NJ Transit train that
stops at Secaucus Junction Station (SEC next to line name), then use your
ticket to transfer to the MetLife Service.

For
a 1 p.m. game, the last train to arrive in time for kickoff departs from NYC
Penn Station at 12:14 p.m.

With
a literary flair, no one better captured Bar None's Big Easy flavor than Brett
Michael Dykes, a Who Dat transplant from Chauvin.

"Bar
None has a distinct game day aroma that's not unfamiliar to the senses of
anyone who's ever visited a den of imbibery housed within the French Quarter,
" wrote Dykes. "It's the aroma of perspiration, unhealthy delicious
cuisine, stale booze and unbridled passion, and seeing that the sense of smell
is reported to be most powerful when it comes to evoking visceral emotional
connections, we Saints fans tend to find the familiar aroma to be particularly
soothing."

Extra point: What
to read or watch to get in that New York state of mind:

Movies:Ghostbusters (Hey, it's Halloween. You
got a problem with that?), Gangs of New
York, 9/11